EXECUTIVE SUMMARY __________________________________________________________________________ appropriate measures to effectively combat any kind of exploitation, especially economic and sexual exploitation and child trafficking. 3.2 Economic governance and management 3.18 Stakes and challenges of governance and economic management. Benin’s postcolonial economic history can be divided into three major periods. Economic governance and management policies have followed these three periods, and have influenced both the focus and challenges of the country’s economic structure throughout its history. 3.19 The first period (1960-1972) was marked by great instability, with a series of coups d’état and frequent change of leaders (more than 15 heads of state) and political regimes. Benin was known as the ‘sick child’ of West Africa and the political management of independence was constantly in crisis. The coup d’état of October 1972 put an end to this period. The focus and challenge of transforming an economic structure based on colonial objectives into an integrated economic structure aimed at national development were not taken into account during this period. 3.20 The second period (1972-1990), that of the construction of socialism, was marked by nationalisation of some private enterprises and by the creation of new state enterprises and semipublic companies. Economic policy in the socialist development system, which mainly advocated industrialisation, encouraged massive state industrial investment for which the country may have lacked the necessary management capacity. This resulted in a serious economic crisis. 3.21 The third period (1990 to date), known as the Democratic New Deal, began after the National Sovereign Conference. The return to liberalism and the establishment of a multiparty democracy formed the basis of economic management. Whilst now receiving international aid, the country’s economic governance in this period was marked by a need for macroeconomic stabilisation in order to create the conditions necessary for economic recovery. The macroeconomic results were satisfactory, but development and structural change prompted a quest for financial balance, which replaced development policy. The economic governance model could not last long and the country became increasingly incapable of effectively playing its role as a transit economy and, especially, of reducing poverty. 3.22 The country has defined its long-term vision in the Alafia Bénin 2025 project, and this is a praiseworthy step. The Alafia Bénin 2025 vision seeks to build an emerging Benin by that year. Furthermore, the government recently translated the vision into ‘strategic development orientations’. However, the coordination needed to implement these orientations, and particularly translating them into sectoral policies, suffers from certain weaknesses that breed other challenges for economic governance. These weaknesses are widespread corruption (which has become a culture and a more or less internalised method/instrument of governance) and lack of accountability in the 11